Preview DirectWrite / Cleartype GDI Rendering on Mac OS X without Windows?

Alexis Samson
Alexis Samson Posts: 11
edited October 2014 in Technique and Theory
For testing hinting without leaving Mac, is this possile? Or is using parallels to run Windows the best way (other than using slow web browser testing services)?
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Comments

  • Stephen Coles
    Stephen Coles Posts: 1,007
    There are a few online services, such as Browserstack, for generating browser screenshots which can create pretty good samples of the various rendering schemes. In fact, I know foundries who use these services for producing the webfont previews on their retail site.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,886
    FontLab VI will have this capability, but until then, those are your two options.
  • kupfers
    kupfers Posts: 259
    edited October 2014
    If you are on a Retina laptop I would recommend using an external standard-res monitor either way. Virtual machine and cross-platform test sites both worked well for me, but sometimes what I saw on my high-res screen didn’t seem 100% reliable to me. (I used crossbrowsertesting.)
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,886
    Agreed! I have gotten some interesting and I believe inconsistent results on retina screens (both laptop and external) in my Windows VM.
  • Georg Seifert
    Georg Seifert Posts: 674
    “Retina” screens contradict the principles that are used to simulate resolution on a normal res LCD screen. They actually show the colors instead of partially lighting up the pixel.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,886
    Yes, looking at LCD-optimized bitmaps from a regular-res environment on a double-res screen can cause problems.
  • Matt Heximer
    Matt Heximer Posts: 17
    probably worth the investment to pick up a cheap-o used/refurbished PC laptop ($100?), and avoid the headaches.

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